


Blown Away

by paintedrecs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Artist Keith (Voltron), Artist Shiro, M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Shiro POV, Shiro has both a competence kink and a praise kink, but this is 10 percent innuendo 90 percent feels 0 percent actual smut, glassblower AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 18:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: Shiro takes a quick breath, a little too ragged for this early in the day, and tries not to think about how it feels to have Keith looking down at him as he puts his lips back to the long metal pipe and blows in time with Keith’s clipped, frowningly intense instructions.“Blow. Stop,” Keith says, his eyes fixed now on the glass turning between his hands, leaving Shiro free to watch him—the steam billowing from the thick sheaves of wet newspaper shielding his palms, the concentration furrowing his forehead, the sweat trickling down the side of his throat, seemingly unnoticed.Shiro can't help but notice everything about Keith, these days.





	Blown Away

**Author's Note:**

> If you look up the title of this fic, you'll find a reality TV show about a glassblowing competition. It's a fun watch, it has a weirdly large amount of innuendo (personal glory holes? c'mon), and within the first episode, I couldn't stop thinking about Shiro and Keith as glassblowers.
> 
> This is a short twitterfic cleaned up for AO3; it was a STRUGGLE to not expand upon their backstories more, but I'm trying to get some of my WIPs actually posted instead of letting them all balloon past 20k. So here's some pining artists and (spoilers) just a little bit of kissing.

Takashi Shirogane hasn’t been a teenager for some time—hasn’t _felt_ like one since long before he actually crossed over into those hormone-clogged, rather unpleasant years. His parents had called him an old soul; the rest of his relatives had gone with “Shiro,” a teasingly affectionate reference to the way he toddled after his grandfather, Jiro, with wide-eyed adoration.

Shiro hadn’t minded it much. He loved spending time in Shirogane Glass, fetching tools for his grandfather, absorbing the training alongside new assistants, doing his best to follow his parents’ instructions to not get underfoot—or too close to the furnaces, although that was a losing battle. Shiro loved the heat of them, the molten glow of the glass as it was heated, spun, stretched, blown into forms no one but his grandfather could envision.

Glassblowing was, in some ways, Shiro’s first language; he felt at home there, as though he’d been born from the furnaces, rather than in the disinfectant-sharp, white-walled hospital where doctors prodded his limbs and listened worriedly to his lungs.

The examination rooms were stark and always a little too cold. Shiro breathed out, and in, and fixed his eyes on the back of the tightly-shut door, waiting for it to open, for the tile and asphalt and concrete streets to take him back to the color-drenched world he never wanted to leave behind.

He learned terms in his grandfather’s workshop, first, before he was old enough to understand there were other meanings—ones that made the boys from his class snicker during field trips, pushing at each other and making gestures that sent embarrassment flooding through his body once he recognized the obscene movements.

Shiro got along with the other boys: he played sports; he joined clubs and made the honor roll; he went to a couple dances. But he was different from most of them, in an unexpected number of ways. Some mattered more than others. Some he didn’t quite understand, not for a while, not until he slipped the thick dictionary off the bookcase at home, then went onto his dad’s computer, and discovered that “glory hole” didn’t just mean the narrow-necked furnace where glass was reheated to keep it malleable as it was worked into its final shape.

It’s been a long time since then. Most days, Shiro hardly feels like the same person; he’s certainly spent enough years blowing glass to separate his work—his passion—from the suggestive titters of teenagers who don’t know any better.

Shiro hasn’t been a teenager in more than half a decade. But working with Keith— _for_ Keith, as his quiet, steady assistant—somehow strips away all his experience, his easy confidence, his ability to _not_ blush furiously whenever Keith snaps out terse commands to “flash it in the glory hole” or to “paddle hard on the top, _harder_ , Shiro.”

Shiro knows better than anyone else in the hot shop what Keith means, what he’s supposed to do in response, that their sweat-slick bodies are engaged in an intricate but entirely chaste dance. But he can’t help reacting in ways he desperately knows he shouldn’t.

He’s not even sure what it is, exactly, about Keith that gets to him. Keith is handsome, yes—stunningly so, with a lithe build, dark hair, and eyes that must be a deep shade of blue but seem closer to violet in certain lights, if you look closely enough. And Shiro spends time looking. But as pleasurable as physical beauty can be, he’s always placed more value on what’s beneath the glossy surface, watching carefully for cracks to show. Everything else can splinter apart, almost without notice, if the core isn’t sound.

Not that he has the luxury of judging. Not anymore, not after he’s let his own life fracture beyond repair.

Shiro takes a quick breath, a little too ragged for this early in the day, and tries not to think about how it feels to have Keith looking down at him as he puts his lips back to the long metal pipe and blows in time with Keith’s clipped, frowningly intense instructions.

“Blow. Stop,” Keith says, his eyes fixed now on the glass turning between his hands, leaving Shiro free to watch him—the steam billowing from the thick sheaves of wet newspaper shielding his palms, the concentration furrowing his forehead, the sweat trickling down the side of his throat, seemingly unnoticed.

Shiro can't help but notice everything about Keith, these days.

“Blow again. Softly...that's it, just a little more pressure,” Keith says, then breaks the usual pattern with a gruffly pleased, “Good, Shiro, that feels perfect, you're doing great.”

Shiro’s lungs clench from the praise, an abrupt, involuntary reaction that leaves him terrified, for a few bare seconds, that he’ll actually pass out on the workroom floor. In front of _Keith_ , which shouldn’t be his first thought, considering the literal piles of hazardous objects surrounding them. The last thing he needs is more injuries or scars. Worse, though, would be ruining Keith’s work right at the formative moment. And immediately after he’d complimented Shiro’s blowing, too...Shiro’s lungs tighten again, this time in tortured embarrassment.

Through the buzzing in his ears, Shiro hears Keith repeating his name, now with a puzzled lift at the end. He’s supposed to be breathing. Into his distressed lungs, first, then into the tube. Filling the glowing glass orb cupped in Keith’s hands.

The first breath comes out as more of a gasp, but after that Shiro manages, powering through the lingering lightheadedness until Keith’s ready to move to the next step.

At the end of the day, Keith trades out his usual parting nod with the slightest hint of a smile and a “Goodnight, Shiro,” that makes everything worth it: the long hours in sweat-drenching heat, the ache from overusing his new prosthetic arm, being dropped down to an assistant role after the accident...

It’s a lengthy list. Lately, Shiro’s spent less time dwelling on it, preoccupied with more important matters.

He only knows a handful of things about Keith, mostly whispered rumors with what are probably a few fragments of truth worth picking out. He ignores the snide comments, which stem largely from envy at Keith's fierce creativity, and hopes Keith hasn't heard the cruelest ones.

Some are easy to disregard, like the ridiculous claim by one of the other assistants that Keith is there on some sort of criminal rehabilitation sponsorship. That one's probably due to Keith's attachment to leather and the cherry-red motorcycle Shiro's seen the guy eyeing.

Others have a spark of validity: although Keith’s last name is different and he’s never been seen interacting on a familiar level with Krolia, the co-founder of Marmoran Glassworks, the two bear a striking physical resemblance. Still. Blood doesn't mean nepotism. Keith has real skill; he could’ve found a job anywhere he liked, including all the studios that had so decidedly rejected Shiro.

Keith doesn't seem like anything fazes him, but Shiro has seen his jaw tighten in response to the gossip swirling through the workroom, his shoulders hunching ever-so-slightly: infinitesimal displays of emotion that Shiro only catches because he's used to paying attention to details. He used to watch the glass this closely. Now he watches Keith.

It’s never occurred to Shiro to wonder if Keith is watching him just as closely, if he’s doing his best to learn about Shiro from the source, ignoring the stories being spun about the former award-winning glassblower and his catastrophic career trajectory. Perhaps Keith’s never heard them. Or he simply doesn’t care. It doesn’t really matter to Shiro; whatever the reason, he appreciates Keith's silence and focus on his work—the fact that Keith’s never asked if he's _that_ Takashi Shirogane.

Artists can be superstitious, and Shiro knows there's an aura of bad luck clinging to him. Between that and assumptions about his diminished skill, it'd been hard to find a studio to take him in after the fiery, devastating destruction of his.

It doesn't matter that none of it was his fault—that it'd been ruled as likely sabotage, although there wasn't enough proof to even begin to press charges. Artists held grudges, too, and Shiro had been a rising star others had wanted to drag down from the sky.

After dozens of rejections—some apologetic, some far less so—Shiro had taken one last chance on a studio that was making waves with its creativity, its new way of doing things. He couldn't afford to rebuild; if this was a no, he'd try...teaching, maybe. Or leaving art behind for something more practical.

Krolia had taken a quick glance at his portfolio, then looked up at him with a puzzled frown. "Of course you'll start as soon as you can," she'd said, like anyone would've been a fool to not hire him. Shiro had breathed freely for the first time in months.

On his first day, when the glassblowers' gazes skittered past him, as though his bad luck would transfer through the briefest eye contact, Keith had walked through the doors, peeling off a leather jacket and looking directly at Shiro. "You," he'd said, a sharp summons Shiro obeyed.

The others seem to think Keith is heartless, that he holds himself apart because he considers himself above them. He's reserved, Shiro thinks. Quiet only because he gets lost in his own thoughts, in treading that careful line between creation and destruction.

Glasswork, to Shiro, is unlike anything else. It can take any shape you can imagine: it can be strong, or fragile; functional, or simply decorative. It can be sculpted into an immense structure or shatter at the slightest inattentive touch. Glass is delicate. It's beautiful.

And Keith understands it, can interact with it to a degree Shiro has never seen. It's mesmerizing...yet Shiro finds Keith's understated kindness even more astonishing.

It's more than that first day, when Keith shouldered aside the idea of Shiro's curse and laid claim to him instead. "You looked like the strongest one in the room," Keith had said, almost dismissively, the one time Shiro had ventured to bring it up.

It's not true; there were two or three others Shiro's size, Hunk easily the most capable among them. And the pinch at the corner of Keith's mouth was another sign Shiro had learned to pick out—an indication, however rare, that Keith was intentionally holding something back.

Artists can be sharp, impatient, with tempers that flare as hot as the furnaces they work with. On many occasions, the sound of glass shattering has been either preceded or followed by harshly snapped words, angry accusations flung like weapons as hours of effort shiver to unsalvageable pieces.

Glass breaks. It's inevitable, even with the most skilled artisan: all it takes is one careless move, a touch in the wrong spot, an unanticipated temperature change. When it happens, it's often not the assistant's fault, though they can take the brunt of the blame.

It _has_ been Shiro's fault—fingers that don't move as well as they used to, minute differences in the strength of his grip that he forgets to account for. In the first week, four hours into one of Keith's installation pieces, Shiro had fumbled it. Had broken it beyond repair.

Keith had simply looked at the pile of shards at their feet, then up at Shiro, his eyes as intense as ever, but with no anger in them. His mouth had quirked into a strange line that it took Shiro a moment to recognize as a smile.

"Didn't like how that one was turning out anyway," Keith had said, in that gruff-but-soft voice that always makes shivers dance along Shiro's spine—something that hasn’t turned into catastrophe yet, at least not in the workroom, but might still, if Shiro isn’t careful.

They don't talk much; there isn't room for it as they work. Those that chatter freely tend to produce fewer, or far less intricate, pieces—their bitterness and the level of their biting gossip intensifying as they see what Keith, with Shiro's help, continually creates.

They don't need to talk to understand each other. Shiro learns about Keith through his work—Keith’s interactions with him and others, yes, but also through the stories he tells through his art. Keith may be quiet, but to Shiro, his work speaks volumes.

(Shiro doesn't realize that Keith is learning about him, too. Seeing how deft he is with even the most complex tools, often responding to Keith's next move almost before Keith has a chance to bring it from thought to action. They're a team: as seamless as the glass they shape.)

Months in, Shiro's face still heats when Keith says his name, or when he slides the glass into their private glory hole, keeping it ready for Keith's firm, confident touches as he does with it what he will.

Keith makes him feel...strange. Unbalanced, yet somehow grounded, too.

It's difficult to keep his mind on his work, sometimes, when the curve of Keith's mouth is more appealing than anything his imagination could possibly conjure. He can blame his flush on the heat of the workroom, at least, though that brings its own dangers...namely, Keith stripping down to a tank top, a scrap of fabric that sweat plasters to his tautly muscled chest and back. That was the cause of another broken sculpture—fortunately one that'd been underway for less time, that Keith was able to reshape with a few skillful strokes.

It's a lost cause, Shiro recognizes morosely. Keith is talented, and beautiful, and oddly kind, and everything feels just as seamless when they do talk: during meal breaks, and sometimes outside, after work, standing by Keith's bike as the sun sinks and the night embraces them.

He's torn between making the most of it while he can, or shielding his heart against the inevitable shattering to come. Keith won't stay at Marmoran Glassworks forever—or for much longer at all, if he's as serious about his craft as he seems. As Shiro knows he is.

The hammer falls one evening, as they're setting one of Shiro's favorite pieces yet in the annealer to cool. Without making any formal agreement, they'd both worked long past the usual closing time, after everyone else had gone.

It's quiet in the workroom; Shiro had been enjoying the peaceful stillness, and enjoying his time with Keith more. It takes him a moment to register Keith's words, ringing in the silence.

"It'll be my final piece, I think," Keith says, as he helps Shiro clear away their tools.

Shiro fumbles the punty, and Keith catches it, steadying Shiro's hand, not letting go immediately.

"So you'll—" Shiro clears his throat, tries again. "You're leaving, then. Soon?" He hopes the bone-deep agony doesn't come across as clearly as he's feeling it.

The ache in his muscles is familiar; it will ease when he goes home, takes a hot shower, relaxes as best he can in his lonely apartment. The ache in his heart is as constant, and not so easy to soothe. It clenches now, pushing up to a lump in his throat, burning behind his eyes.

Keith's hand tightens over his, then releases. He takes one step away, then stops, tilting his head up just enough to look into Shiro's eyes, in that intense, overwhelming, perfect way he's done since the moment they met.

"It's time," Keith says.

Shiro simply nods, unable to bring coherent words out yet, everything too tangled with the thoughts of what will happen to him once Keith is gone. He's invaluable here now, he knows that, but the idea of creating anything without Keith feels empty.

Those who don't know Keith think he rarely speaks; Shiro might've thought that, too, in the early days. But that's merely because Keith doesn't often have much he wants to say. When there's a topic he's interested in, it can take hours, sometimes, for the two of them to reluctantly part ways.

Keith talks now, laying out his plans for his own studio, where he can have full creative control: making what he wishes, hiring whoever he likes, turning his dreams into reality. It's a detailed roadmap that he'd clearly worked out long before he'd met Shiro.

Shiro swallows his heartbreak and smiles, for Keith. "That's amazing; I'm happy for you," he says, in intervals; after the first few times, he means it.

Enthusiasm looks good on him, Shiro thinks.

But there's something else—in the way Keith has started to absently touch his hair, loosed from the tie that'd been holding it up as he worked, as though he's not sure what to do with his hands. It's an unusually restless gesture for him.

Ordinarily Keith barely pays his hair any heed, never bothered when it falls into his eyes or slips from behind his ears, Shiro's fingers clenching with a repressed urge to touch it—to touch him. He's seen this once before, in the hours prior to a big show.

Keith's nervous.

Of course he would be. He's leaving his family and a secure job behind, forging his own path. It's been years now and it didn't end well for him, but Shiro remembers that particular mix of terror and excitement from when he took the helm at Shirogane Glass—too young for it, really, at only 18, to mesh his grandfather’s legacy with his own ambitions. Keith's story will go better than his. He'll thrive, Shiro knows it.

He sticks his hand out; Keith takes it after a moment, his eyes flicking down, then back to Shiro's face, with a question in them that Shiro doesn't quite know how to answer.

"You're amazing, Keith," he says. That part's easy; he thinks it every day.

He's gathering his thoughts for the rest— _I'm so proud of you; I know you’ll be a huge success; your art is breathtaking_ —when he realizes that they haven't shaken hands at all, like he'd intended, as an encouraging, professional sort of farewell. They're simply holding hands now.

"I'll miss you," he says, which he really hadn't intended to say at all. The other sentiments were far safer, and still true.

But Keith smiles, with that funny little quirk to his lips that always takes a while to fully lift the corners. "Shiro," he says. "I meant...I want you to come with me."

Shiro feels stupid now; he should've realized, with Keith talking about bringing like-minded artists to his new studio. While that process was underway, Keith would need someone who was familiar with his work, who could ease the transition for him. "Right, of course," he says. "As your assistant." It's a pleasant thought.

"No," Keith says, squeezing Shiro's hand; somehow neither of them has let go yet. "I was hoping...as my partner. You're too talented to stay here, Shiro. You should be running your own studio again; we all know it. And...the two of us work well together."

He touches his hair with his free hand, casting his gaze down for a second, and Shiro's heart flutters, protests dying away in his throat. Nervous again. Keith thinks Shiro would turn him down—would ever be able to say no to him. To...an opportunity like this, that is.

“Your partner," Shiro says, slowly, testing it out. There's that old twinge of terror twisting through his veins, followed by a surge of excitement. "I would love to, Keith," he says, in full honesty. "But this is your future; I don't want to drag you down."

"You never could, Shiro," Keith says, with a fierceness in his expression that nearly bowls Shiro over. He holds onto Keith, the lifeline keeping him upright.

He swallows, thickly, so grateful to have met this man—this friend, who makes him believe again in possibilities.

"We should go over the plans, more carefully and in detail, before you make any final decisions," he says, scrambling to be reasonable, even now. "But...yes. If it all works out, and if I have enough savings to go in on this with you, I'd love to be your business partner, Keith."

Keith's hand loosens a little, his eyes flicking away from Shiro.

He's said something wrong, somehow. Was he too cautious? But no—practicality was important for this kind of endeavor, and Keith has always appreciated that about him. "Keith?" he asks softly. "What is it?"

Keith hesitates; it's unlike him, enough that Shiro's forehead creases in worry before Keith takes his other hand, pulling himself closer, bridging that final step between them. Shiro's heart thumps. He's too conscious of his own breath, of the brush of Keith's thigh against his.

"I'd like to be your business partner," Keith says, his jaw set in that steely, determined line that usually signals he's testing out a new design that may fail spectacularly. But he always tries. That’s one of Shiro’s favorite things about him. "I'd also like to be your partner in other ways. If you're interested."

It knocks the breath out of Shiro's lungs. Keith's face is tilted up; he's watching Shiro expectantly, waiting for an answer for which Shiro has no words.

He kisses Keith instead, feeling Keith's mouth open under his, their still-linked arms caught between them before they shift into an embrace, Keith's hands pressing against his chest, then sliding to grip his shoulders. He has one hand on Keith's waist, one stroking through his silky black hair.

 _I love you_ , Shiro thinks dizzily, chasing the taste of Keith's mouth, longing for it to be real. He's dreaming, he has to be. He spent too long toiling before the furnaces today; he'll wake soon. But for now, in this dream, he can have this. Keith, in his arms.

When he opens his eyes, Keith is smiling at him, more openly than ever before. His mouth is still slightly parted, his hands slipping down a little along Shiro’s shoulder blades so he can lean back to get a better look at his face. "That's a yes?" Keith asks, his eyes glinting with happiness and...hope, possibly. It’s a look Shiro’s never seen on him before. "You can kiss me again to be sure."

"We still have to look over the papers," Shiro manages, before he gives in, pulling Keith forward so he can kiss him again, pouring every _yes_ he's ever withheld into the press of their lips, into the movement of Keith's body against his.

It's too soon to tell Keith he loves him. They've only just started...whatever this is. Whatever it has the possibility of becoming. Shiro kisses him. He thinks of the future—of their future, together. He says yes to all of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I took two lines directly from the show: “paddle hard on the top” and “flash it in the glory hole.” And yet it still turned into this very soft, very not-smutty fic. Which is sorta my brand, I guess, so stay tuned if you're interested in more fluffy soulmates! I'm paintedrecs on twitter as well, and I've got a couple long-fics coming to AO3...hopefully soon.


End file.
